From 1977 to 2003, seven Joint National Committees (JNC), sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), produced consensus multi-specialty guidelines on the diagnosis and management of hypertension. In 2013, well into the development of JNC8, the NHLBI abruptly turned the process over to the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA). The JNC8 committee independently published an evidence-based guideline in JAMA that raised the blood pressure treatment threshold in most older adults from 140/90 to 150/90 mm Hg. Concerned about conflicts of interest and other deviations from Institute of Medicine-recommended practices for developing trustworthy guidelines , primary care groups, including the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), declined to participate in the ACC/AHA guideline panel. And the longstanding edifice of hypertension guidelines fractured. In 2017, the ACC/AHA released its clinical practice guideline , which most notab...
